BIOL 573 Animal Communication

The course will first provide a background for the field of animal communication including a discussion of definitions of animal communication. The class will then survey the production, transmission and reception of auditory, visual, and chemical signals. Optimality theory and signal detection theory will be introduced as they apply to animal communication. The class will spend some time on how signals come to be and why they have the design they do (signal evolution), and will investigate signaling in a variety of situations such as between potential mates, other conspecifics, and autocommunication signaling.

Credits

3

Offered

Every other year